


For a Day, For a Lifetime

by CampionSayn



Category: Leafie a Hen Into the Wild, 마당을 나온 암탉 - 황선미 | The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly - Hwang Sun-mi
Genre: Alternate Ending, Canon Divergence, Gen, I am a complete sucker for fluff endings, mother-mother relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 18:37:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3457595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's the thing: sacrifices can be made so a promise can be fulfilled. Or, the canon ending made me cry, so let's try for something a little less grim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For a Day, For a Lifetime

-:-  
Now even if I'm captured and starved, I'll be able to live off the protein...for a while.  
-Miranda July.  
  
A box without hinges, key or lid,  
yet golden treasure inside is hid.  
-Bilbo Baggins.  
  
I don't think I'm playing God doing this for somebody. I think that it's more like I'm being somebody's angel and giving them a gift that they can't provide for themselves.  
-Kari, donor.

* * *

  
  
The last duck disappeared into a tiny dot against the sky that reflected brilliantly from the sun against the snow. Leafie's wings stayed aloft for a few more moments, fluttering from her own wind conjured in the momentum of imagining what it must have been like to fly.  
  
But it couldn't last.  
  
The chill from the air crept past her layers of down and started to snap her low heat reserves until she had to tuck her wings back against herself, eyes still focused on the practically blank sky, proud of her son, but wishing for...  
  
Broken bark in fine segments of length gave out under weight, echoing out against the surrounding area and the hen flicked her head back and away from the open space towards ultimate freedom. Trees flinched at the cold air themselves, branches swaying into or against the chill, their lost twigs surrounding them like lost fingers or hair, but there was nobody else; all the other animals had gone off to find a place of shelter for the night.  
  
Well, all but her and one other, perhaps.  
  
No, not perhaps. For certain.  
  


* * *

  
Here is something that must be recognized: understanding is important for someone to grow, or else they decay from lack of knowledge in all things. Born with some things, without learning, nothing to can be accomplished and one dies.  
  
Three eggs, warm and moist from just coming into the world and speckled with dirt from being picked up and rolled forward, glistened as the moon took its perch in the sky overhead, the snow they were huddled in coming to rest at the foot of the den where the roof had caved downward and opened into air and chill.  
  
It simply wouldn't do, Leafie considered, edging snow around the clutch of eggs so they wouldn't roll off and break before they were supposed to. Ruby eyes flitted away from the eggs she'd made and over to the shivering weasel kits, snowflakes falling through the hole in their roof and settling against their warmth, melting into their fur and freezing them further.  
  
“This won't do at all,” the hen sighed, tucking her head down as she moved forward, her beak pressing into one of the little ones moving away from the others. Her touch made it flinch, but it didn't resist as she moved it back against the others and then stood over them; their numbers sensing her and becoming still as she tucked down and settled gently over their forms.  
  
Apparently, this new heat draped over them in a kind of protection like their mother gave when she could made them less likely to move at all except to try and edge closer into Leafie's feathers, tickling her underside so much that she couldn't help the small giggles that escaped her. Greenie had never done this when he was little, preferring to just be still and soak up whatever he could wherever he was against or on top of her.  
  
The pleasant thought couldn't last, however and her amusement took a back seat to her reason for coming as paw steps sounded coming closer, labored and drawn out, like the march from a battle nobody had actually won.  
  
Enemies in nature do not tend to each others children out of sympathy. It messes with the balance of things. But Leafie had never been any good at taking the accepted choices of nature into her own head. The other animals of the area might have well despised her for this, but if she cared if and when anyone aside from herself thought on such things, she never would have raised her son _(Wanderer's son, too; his figure and protective personality etched into Greenie's very blood—Leafie would never know if any part of him was like the mother who had given her blood to make him)_ into the strong young mallard he became.  
  
She did not flee at the sight of the single eye that caught her in its gaze, nor the teeth sharp and gleaming with old blood from a kill the day before, or the claws that braced the ground and dragged against the snow towards her.  
  
Leafie simply looked upon the emaciated weasel that had not expected anyone to be keeping her babies warm and nodded towards the eggs.  
  
“Eat those. I'd hate for them to go to waste, and you need the nourishment if you're going to also keep your babies from starving.”  
  
The predator had not expected such a simple statement from what she had once deemed as easy prey half a year ago.  
  
She sucked in air to keep herself from feeling light headed and looked at the eggs the hen had pointed her towards, suspicious as her own kind were supposed to be, but also immediately tempted, mouth watering at the prospect of not wasting energy to just kill the hen which would only keep her strong and lactating for three days at most. But an easy meal in nature, given freely by another, is rarely heard of, so she couldn't very well just follow the suggestion.  
  
One-Eye had to be a little difficult.  
  
“Why?”  
  
Leafie blinked, head swaying a little as wind hissed through dead sticks still clinging to trees above them like an attempt to enter into the conversation. Amusement settled discreet in her breast, following understanding by hand.  
  
“I have nothing left to do with my life. My son is grown and strong and happy, so by all accounts, my life is complete; but I made a promise and I think this is the best way to come through on it.”  
  
The weasel crept closer to the eggs, losing her stance of defiant ire when one of her babies wiggled out from under then hen, felt chill digging into its fur and then quickly rushed back to the warmth. The hen hummed delightedly at the movement, but the sharp talons of her feet remained closed tight beneath her, harm far from wishing to be inflicted on soft fur and flesh.  
  
“What promise?”  
  
“That I would be waiting here in the spring. I can't do that if I just let you kill me.”  
  
“You would _let_ me kill you?” The weasel sneered, teeth shown when she also gave a weak laugh; the ribs already ghastly when relaxed seemed to double in size at the intake of breath. The amusement of such a thought, however, died away when Leafie simply gave a gentle smile.  
  
“...That's...” One-Eye stalled, actually looking at the creature across from her in a way that a hunter should not look at something that would become a meal, dead and rotting in fractured bones and bloodied feathers in the back of her den until she cleaned them out near the end of summer because it became far too overcrowded. A thing that meant practically nothing in the months of growth and green, and everything in stagnant chill.  
  
The hunter sat before the eggs, one paw set forward and claws dancing along the closest egg's shell. Rhythmic tapping about as loud as her heartbeats in her chest. One claw tapping up and down on a spot of blood that was the hen's; life blood hardened.  
  
“This seems like a lot you're giving up just on the hope that you'll make it to spring,” she said after a while, sniffing deep, tongue lapping against one egg and she had to hold herself together, keep from cracking the white to get to the gold, “But just giving me eggs doesn't guarantee that you're protected. There are far more dangers in the area than just little old me. There's the threat of exposure, freezing to death and starvation.”  
  
“I know that,” Leafie sighed, head tilting back and exposing her throat as she looked up through the hole in the den at the stars, “But I am willing to try for the sake of a promise to my child. Wouldn't you do the same?”  
  
One-Eye did not have a verbal answer to that. Words meant nothing when faced with such a question.  
  
Action was the better choice.  
  
The weasel lay belly flat to the earth, plumes of snow breezing out on the impact of her frame to the ground, her tail swirling to brace against her flank as she settled her paws to both sides of the egg she had tasted. It took little more than a crack of her jaws once against the shell and spat the cracking pieces a few paces away, the pieces breaking further on impact.  
  
Leafie didn't pay attention when One-Eye started lapping out the yolk, smacking her tongue against the roof of her mouth and back to her sustenance, growling in appreciation at the taste and the feeling of something riding down her throat to fill her up. She didn't pay mind when the weasel moved onto the next egg, setting the empty one gently to the side.   
  
The aging hen was fully aware, however, of the few sprinklings of tears running down the side of One-Eye's left cheek, but was polite and was content to just let whatever happen continue.  
  
She had her answer.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> OMG, I can't believe I'm the first settler in this fandom to plant fanfiction on AO3. This is sad.


End file.
